Endoscopy is a medical field in which internal features of the body of a patient are viewed without the use of traditional, fully-invasive surgery. Endoscopy is now widely used to perform minimally-invasive surgical procedures, such as arthroscopy and laparoscopy. A basic endoscopy tool is the endoscopic camera system. An endoscopic camera system generally includes a scope that is inserted into the body of a patient, a camera that is optically and physically coupled to the scope, and a high intensity light source that is normally coupled to the scope by a fiber optic cable to introduce light into the body. Images acquired by the camera are typically displayed on a conventional video monitor.
The camera is normally coupled through a flexible transmission line to a camera control unit (CCU), which in turn is coupled to a base unit. The CCU processes video data provided by the camera head to generate images, which are coupled through the base unit and displayed on a video monitor. The base unit may also be coupled to various multimedia and surgical devices. Multimedia devices may include a printer, a video-cassette recorder (VCR) and an image capture device (ICD). Surgical devices may include, for example, insufflators and arthro-pumps, or other devices. Each of these devices must be monitored and controlled during a surgical procedure.
The equipment may be controlled, at least in part, and at the surgeon's direction, by a nurse or surgical assistant through the use of a wireless device that communicates with the base unit. However, a single operating room may have multiple base units and multiple wireless devices, either because there is more than one control system in operation, or for backup in case of equipment malfunction. To avoid signal interference and device contention between the wireless devices, it is desirable that each wireless device have a unique association with only one base unit at a time. Furthermore, it is desirable that the wireless devices have the ability to re-associate with a different base unit and that base units have the ability to re-associate with a different wireless device. Furthermore, it would be desirable if the association process were automatic, requiring no data input from the user.